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juicy


title: “juice in games” tags:

  • gamedev
  • published
  • juice

Juice (in Games)

A term that stands in for a variety of game-feel words. Pretty much means some game’s feedback mechanisms (shaders, screenshake, sounds, everything) are chunky, crunchy, gnasty with a g, etc.

There’s a talk somewhere with a break-out game and two devs ratcheting up the juice to show how the impact…

brief action pause/freeze to emphasize bigger impact hits

Section titled “brief action pause/freeze to emphasize bigger impact hits”

street fighter punches zelda big hits

called sleep in game maker probably a sceneTree.pause in godot

super crate box move player back when you shoot

moving left/right while shooting doesn’t change the direction you’re facing

release shoot to turn

first frame of bullet animation - just a circle

on enemy, on wall

every bullet hits SOMETHING movie shoot outs in bars

line or particles or dust or clones

something permanent and earned, changed by player actions

leave the bodies sense of previous combat

splitting the rgb channels

dust/particles get pushed around

hotline miami

Most of these are contained in my Best Game Talks youtube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2gEO25pE6dqsPxgajrZSuqutgzZSjnk5

Juice it or lose it

https://youtu.be/Fy0aCDmgnxg

The classic talk on the subject.

https://youtu.be/AJdEqssNZ-U

Jan Willem (JW) Nijman - half of Vlambeer

References:

  • Juice it or lose it
  • cactus igs 2009

Cactus (at igs 2009) - making a game is like making a baby

Section titled “Cactus (at igs 2009) - making a game is like making a baby”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfDirPY-Jzc

cactus (jonatan soderstrom, game dev) (hotline miami dev)

quality: hand-held content: great!

like making a baby!

game dev: beginning, like conception (sex!)

  • later, you get fat, and it’s a ton of work
  • your friends lose respect for you
  • then, birth - getting it out there, the hardest part, painful not fun
  • then, not what you expected

creativity:

  • experiment a lot
  • dare to be serious
  • renew your concept
  • doesn’t need to be fun
  • create an atmosphere

recs: sfxr

fun game examples at the end

idea: finding different endings! like: the stanley parable

Math for Game Programmers: Juicing Your Cameras with Math

Section titled “Math for Game Programmers: Juicing Your Cameras with Math”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-Qe66AvtY

Squirrel Eiserloh, SMU Guildhall

EXCELLENT talk on juicy camera work.

references:

  • Juice it or lose it
  • the art of screenshake

points of focus vs points of interest

pof should probably stay in view poi are hinted at: proximity * importance

Math for Game Programmers: Fast and funky 1D nonlinear transformations

Section titled “Math for Game Programmers: Fast and funky 1D nonlinear transformations”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr5xkf6zSzk

Squirrel Eiserloh, SMU Guildhall

easing functions on steroids

from comment: ‘tunable normalized sigmoid function’ It can represent most of these shapes with just a change in a constant?

most important number ranges: [0, 1], [-1, 1]

perception of alpha is non-linear

easing functions filter functions lerping functions tweening functions

ease-in - name is bad, it refers to ‘fast at the end’ better name: smooth start

smoothstop (ease-out without sqrt) flip - square - flip (1 - x, x^2, 1 - res)

library functions:

  • smoothStart2345
  • smoothStop2345

mixing/weighting/blending

smoothstart2.2 = mix(smoothstart2, smoothstart3, 0.2) (80/20 weight)

weight as the time

smoothstep = mix(smoothStart, smoothStop, t) # t is time during easing

scale = t * f(t) reverseScale = (1-t) * f(t) arch = scale(flip(t)) = t * (1-t) smoothStartArch3 = scale(arch2, t) = x^2 * (1-x) smoothStopArch3 = reverseScale(arch2, t) = x * (1-x)^2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=216_5nu4aVQ

gmtk

Good examples of game feel!

More Mountains: Feel, make your game feel good

Section titled “More Mountains: Feel, make your game feel good”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wqzvc7Xg3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmSAG51BybY

nicolae berbece, xelubest, xelu_best

Move Or Die - game

game feel, input feedback

pitch-bend adds variation to sounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L1B5YaxxoA

pretty awesome, excellent video, and not too long

worth implementing yourself

  • impact/reward
  • challenge
  • fantasy

Creating some classics and juicing them up - fun way to learn what makes games fun.

And, a nice creative box to trap yourself in.

See all game dev topics.